Witness to Murder

Cheryl Draper is a Los Angeles interior decorator for W&J Sloane, who rehired her after her failed attempt to run her own firm. Waking up in the middle of the night to do the mundane task of closing her bedroom window, she, looking across the street, witnesses what she is certain is a man murdering a woman by strangulation; she immediately telephones the police to report what she saw. The case is led by Lieutenant Larry Mathews. By the time Mathews and his associate Sergeant Eddie Vincent get the information from Cheryl and initiate their investigation, the perpetrator, writer Albert Richter, has been able to hide any evidence of the murder. Despite his published writing highlighting his rather extreme philosophical views of killing stemming from being a Nazi during the war, Richter is otherwise viewed as an upstanding citizen by those who casually know him, thus making Cheryl's accusations all the more unbelievable. While Cheryl is certain of what she saw, she begins to fear for her life as she believes Richter will try to kill her as a witness to his crime. Things get complicated when Mathews, while not being able to act on any of Cheryl's circumstantial evidence accusations against Richter, begins to fall for her, and thus wants to help her in whatever she may believe. On top of this issue, Richter himself begins a campaign in manufacturing evidence to show that Cheryl is mentally unstable, which could lead to her killing herself in going crazy.